Currently a large percentage of the population own and use a mobile communication device including those selected from the group of classic cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, Blackberrys, voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) devices, or other wirelessly connected communications devices for coupling a subscriber (hereafter referred to as a mobile subscriber) to a communication system. In many locations a “calling party pays” system is implemented. The calling party pays system requires the party establishing the communications to pay for the call. For example, as one would expect in these types of systems, a mobile subscriber that initiates a call to another mobile subscriber will be billed for initiating the call (e.g., based on the duration of the call, the location of the recipient, etc.) In some systems, both the calling party and the called party are charged for the communication. Additionally, some systems charge premiums for initiating communications with certain recipients, based for example on the nature of the communication network or characteristics of the recipient. For example, in one such system if a landline caller makes a call to a mobile subscriber on a premium network, the landline caller may be required to pay a premium rate to reach the mobile subscriber.
In the calling party pays environment, a mobile subscriber may not wish to pay the expense of the phone call or the added expense associated with calling another party on a premium network. In this type of billing environment, in order to prompt a call from and shift the cost to another party who the subscriber desires to communicate with, the subscriber can initiate a call to the intended party and when the call begins alerting (ringing) the originator of the call can hang up (the practice is sometimes referred to as “pinging”). This causes the phone of the dialed party to receive a missed call alert indicating the first party is attempting to contact the second party. This type of messaging can be intended to prompt the second party to then establish a second phone call back to the first party thus shifting the cost of communications to the second party. Reasons for this behavior can include that the first party is not on a premium network (landline) while the second party is on a premium network (mobile) and the practice allows the overall cost of the call to be lower since the call is not directed at a premium network. In a calling party pays environment, users also may wish to convey information with this type of signaling. The two parties may predetermine the meaning of a message, such as, ‘I have left work’, ‘I have arrived home’ or some other prearranged message. This enables users to establish communications without paying for a call or message. In essence this type of behavior leverages on the billing rules of a calling party pays network, and more specifically on the non billable event related to disconnecting the call before the destination answers, to be able to communicate end to end without the incurring cost.
The behavior of calling a number and hanging up before the billing event to send the originating party's number is commonly referred to as “Pinging” or “Callback.” It has been used through out the industry for many years in local networks or across long distance networks. One common use for this pinging is to bypass the cost of long distance from the local network and shift the cost to a second network or location. For example, a user in a high cost network will place a call to a number in a different country. Upon hearing the called number begin to ring, the user hangs up. This triggers the platform associated with the called number to place a call to the originating number. After this connection is setup between the originating party and the platform, the user inputs the final destination number of the call. The platform then places a second outbound call to the destination number and bridges the two calls together. Oftentimes both calls from the platform are less expensive than originating a call from the local network.
Individual users have found this functionality useful in avoiding both long distance and local charges. Users have also found this functionality useful in allowing quick communications between two users to trigger prearranged events or activities. Significantly given the “peer to peer” nature of cellular there is no need to enter any additional addressing information as the number originally dialed represents the “final destination.”
The problem with this functionality is network resources are utilized to setup the end-to-end ping message without compensating the network provider. Oftentimes the network resources needed to setup these types of ping messages are substantial. The call setup message consumes dedicated spectrum over the air interface, typically reserves actual voice channels on a mobile network, allocates a path through the local system, allocates voice channels between (or on intervening) networks, allocates a path through the system, and a reserves a voice channel on the called system. All of these facilities are setup and then torn down without a billable event occurring on any of the networks. Many times this pinging activity can account for a significant portion of traffic on a network and thus is very disruptive or costly for the mobile operator.
What is required is a method and apparatus that allows a mobile subscriber to rapidly send a ping message to a second user in an easy to understand method while allowing the mobile network to easily handle and route these type of messages. This method and apparatus should allow the user to continue to use the ping setup method similar to the one they have become accustom to using; e.g., on a mobile network the user dials the number, hits send, waits until they hear ringing, and hits end and it should reuse as much of the functionality in the existing mobile network as possible.
A service offering capable of offering an automated ping service is described in PCT applications WO 2005/006725, WO 2004/107795, WO 2004/100521 and PCT/IB2007/052163, incorporated herein by reference. The methods, systems, computer program products and apparatus disclosed in this present application expand the prior art to generally improve the acceptability of the automated ping services for both users and carriers.